selling tea

all my unpaid jobs

I graduated from university in 2009 when the world was still reeling from the global financial crisis. It was not a good time to be a graduate, and my job prospects reflected that, hardcore. I had received a degree in Art History and French Literature from a semi-prestigious university and thought I’d done everything I was supposed to do to be served up a living wage upon arrival to the ‘real world,’ as everyone called it. I felt only lukewarm about the subject of Art History, I had only chosen to switch from English halfway through so I could study in Paris for a year. I’ve never been much for forward planning; I just like to maximise experiential potential. In my 20s, this did not always serve me well and never was this more true than in the realm of my career.

Badly taken Blackberry photo, Shoreditch, 2009

Since unpaid internships were still the norm, I had dutifully completed one each summer during my university tenure, thinking it would set me up nicely for graduation, balancing it with lucrative temp jobs, au pairing, and catering work. I desperately wanted to be a writer for a magazine, and failing that, I’d settle for any old job in a creative industry. I sent emails to each of the magazines, stylists and even the art gallery I had toiled at for free. They weren’t hiring, and they didn’t know anyone who was. Eventually, I secured another (unpaid) internship at the achingly hip House of Holland on Charlotte Road in Shoreditch through one of my most capable friends who already had a real career.

During my time there, I prayed every day of my life for two things: that they might hire me at the end of the internship for money in my bank account each week (the technical definition of a job) and that the seemingly much older, cooler, and more mature Henry and his mates might invite me to parties. He was only three years older than me, but the age gap felt like decades. How had he so successfully figured out life and what was I getting so wrong? Only the latter happened, and it only happened once—at Christmas. My job mostly consisted of figuring out how to make myself look busy in between running to Bethnal Green, Seven Sisters, Turnpike Lane, and the docklands for samples from the tailor, leather from the tannery, and fabric from the fabric shop. I paid for my own transport, of course. It was clear I needed a side hustle to pay for my internship.

I moved five times in that first year post-graduation. I moved from Battersea to Hoxton, to Broadway Market, to Westminster, to Stamford Hill. One of my short-lived homes was in a converted flat in an estate just off Broadway Market. It was 2009, and Hackney was an entirely different place and exactly where I wanted to be. Still, I spent a lot of time going to West London because none of my West London friends could even spell the words East London, much less make the long journey east.

By 2009, the lucrative temp work I’d made £25 an hour at in the early 2000s had dried up — and the catering work was few and far between. Plus, I was terrible at catering. I spent many hours sitting in my bedroom in my E8 postcode with my laptop on my stomach, searching for jobs on Craigslist, like any self-respecting, clueless 22-year-old might. The dwindling end of summer light poured through the window behind me and, for a moment, shone its light on a very attractive listing: SELL TEA 16-20 HOURS A WEEK £10 AN HOUR. I sat up in my bed because I meant business. I could get down with some tea selling. 

I liked the idea of being an aspiring fashion professional (aka indentured servant) by weekday and slinging tea on the weekends. I’d got it all figured out. I emailed my mum about it, eager to let my parents know that there was still hope for me, yet. She replied: “TEA!!!!!!! Oh darling, you'll be perfect at selling! You are charming, elegant, personable, and efficient. How much does it pay? How did you find it? Where is it?” I didn’t have the answer to any of those questions besides that I’d found it on Craigslist, and I never replied to her email.

Inappropriately dressed graduate in signature slutty aesthetic, head-to-toe Top Shop

It turned out to be a pyramid scheme, although a very confused and inept one — considering I never figured out how anyone at the company made any money. I would travel to Whole Foods on Ken High, Stoke Newington, and Camden to give out samples trying (desperately) to sell boxes of tea. I went to the farmer’s market in Hampstead, Borough Market, and a random church green in Dulwich. I traversed the whole of London with my suitcase full of tea. I espoused the benefits to potential customers. The list of benefits of Oolong, White, Green, Pu-Erh, and Black tea was long, and it was in my job description to be able to keep them all straight. And I never saw a single solitary dime from the tea game, though I did sell a box from time to time. I’d send invoices to the owner—an Englishman who lived in China, and who I only ever spoke to over the phone and via email. He never paid them. I still don’t know what this man’s business model was, because he seemed to just give young women hundreds of boxes of tea in an effort to spread the green tea gospel.

I was so naive that I went on like this for a couple of months with no pay. I ended up giving everyone in my family tea for Christmas that year, as well as attempting to fob it off on friends as ‘gifts’. He had hired someone else, another young woman like me — we were colleagues, but we only knew each other via text message. One dark November evening, I took the tube to Stockwell, where she lived. In a gesture of unnecessary goodwill, I had agreed to deliver a small suitcase of as many boxes of tea as I could fit from my stockpile. We commiserated; she had yet to give up hope and still thought a direct debit might be incoming. I felt at once sorry for her and proud of myself, there was someone slightly more naive than me (only slightly). The truth was I had managed to find a paying job in PR, which turned out to be its own brand of miserable (and paid only slightly more than £0/month). The following year I moved to Indonesia for a job and lumped my poor flatmates with the remaining boxes. I found a G-Chat from 2010 that goes:

Elliott: yo

Elliott: are the 500 teabags in the closet yours too?

me: hey

me: oh shit

me: are they chinese tea

Elliott: i think so

Elliott: beige-green boxes

me: yeah fuck they are mine

me: from when i sold tea ugh

me: you can chuck them

me: sorry to bother u with that

Elliott: hahahahah

Elliott: no worries

Elliott: i was a bit surprised

me: hahah

me: i totally forgot about them

I think I was probably lying, embarrassed by the specificity of ‘500 teabags’ in his message. I had nightmares about the tea that I had strewn across London and New York the previous year. I knew exactly where I’d left them, hoping no one would notice. I couldn’t fathom what to do with the many boxes I had been lumped with, so I lumped them with everyone else. I sometimes wonder where that strange man is now and if he ever made any money from his healthy tea company. He was so passionate about how good it was for you.

With love,

Nora x